Thursday, March 31, 2011

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

22,000 children under the age of five will die today of hunger, according to UNICEF. One every four seconds. Considered on a broader scale, that’s equivalent to an earthquake like the one in Haiti last year occurring every 10 days. And that’s just children under five. In 2009, 8 million children worldwide died before their fifth birthday. 4 million newborns worldwide are dying in the first month of life. 1 billion children are currently deprived of one or more services essential to survival and development. Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. 2.5 billion people in the world – over one third of our people – lack access to improved sanitation(1). And according to the World Bank, almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day (2). The numbers are staggering, and beyond our capacity even to grasp.

Martin Luther says that daily bread consists of “everything included in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house,” but also including things like “upright and faithful rulers, [and] good government.” Clearly he would say that over half our planet’s people do not get their daily bread on a regular basis.

I’m sure these numbers aren’t new to most of us. We’ve heard the bleak statistics before, and not only do we struggle to grasp them fully, we tend to become numb to the sheer cruelty and horror the dry numbers can conceal. But in a world where we spend astronomically more for military defense than we do for ending hunger and poverty, I wonder how any of us who live in our comfortable lives, who rarely if ever miss a meal, who take sanitation for granted, and who have more wealth than most of the world, I wonder how we can bring ourselves to pray this petition. How do we pray, “Give us today our daily bread” with any sense of honesty or integrity? How do we hear Jesus’ words to us that we not be anxious for what we will eat or wear without acute embarrassment?

Perhaps what we need to do is remember the petitions which came before: that we have asked God to help us live in God’s rule and reign, and do God’s will. Because in that context, a prayer for daily bread can be for us a plea for God to change us in such ways that we become part of God’s providing daily bread for all.

Our problem is that because we fail to do God’s will, and so to live under God’s rule, we become so self-absorbed we think we’ve got all the problems.

We hear Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 and think, “well, that’s going to be hard – I’m so anxious about so many things, how can I trust God to provide?”

The people of Israel in the wilderness had seen God’s saving acts again and again. Prior to today’s reading, in their hunger they complained to God, as if God had done nothing for them up to now. And once again, God provided. But then, like us, they couldn’t just take that with grace. Afraid they might run out in future, they disobeyed God and hoarded. Manna was given sufficient for the day – and Moses clearly told the people not to save up extra. But of course, people did – and it went foul. And we’re persisting in that behavior and lack of faith.

Because that’s what this all is – a lack of faith. We live in the richest country in the world, with resources beyond belief, where we can throw anything into the ground and it will grow. We’ve had only a handful of attacks by enemies on our nation in the past two centuries – in fact, you’d have to go back to the War of 1812 to find the last time war was waged on our soil by outside enemies, apart from surprise attacks like Pearl Harbor and 9/11.

We live in safety, with all we need – and yet we hoard wealth, we build walls to protect what we have, we live as if we don’t know where our next meal will come from. We are taught to pray “give us today our daily bread,” and we live as if we need to provide for the next 20 years’ needs or more.

And children, meanwhile, continue to die. Or live desperate malnourished lives. If anyone should lack faith in God’s ability to provide daily bread, it should be the half of the world’s people who live in utter poverty, not we who live as we do.

Which means we want to pay attention to Luther’s words in his Large Catechism, and pray this petition in a different way.

Luther gladly proclaims God provides all we need. But then he gives this warning: “How much trouble there is now in the world simply on account of false coinage, yes, on account of daily exploitation and usury in public business, commerce, and labor on the part of those who wantonly oppress the poor and deprive them of their daily bread! This we must put up with, of course; but let those who do these things beware lest they lose the common intercession of the church, and let them take care lest this petition of the Lord’s Prayer be turned against them.” (3)

We pray this prayer in part to remind ourselves that all we have is from God, and we have all we need. We pray it that we might learn to put aside anxiety over our future, over what we have, and trust God to provide all.

But we pray this with Luther’s words in mind, for a greater good: that we might be a part of God’s daily bread for all people. This petition reminds us that it is God’s intent for all God’s people to have all they need for life.

It is, in fact, God’s will. And if others are starving, living in squalor, drinking polluted water or none at all, while we luxuriate – then it is our job, our service, to change that. If we truly wish to live in God’s kingdom and follow God’s will, this is it.

Simply, we cannot pray this petition today without confessing our sin, asking forgiveness, and seeking God’s grace to make a difference for others. We were blessed, through no merit of our own, to be born into the best garden on the planet, with more safety and peace than anyone else in the world has ever known. We cannot pray this petition imagining that that’s all we need to know.

God’s good will is that all have all their daily bread.

Today we learn to pray that we be a part of that providing, that we do whatever we can to bring about an end to poverty and hunger on this planet. We pray that those horrible numbers do not cause our eyes to glaze over and our minds to wander, but urge us to action as much as if the children dying were our next door neighbors.

Because they are. They are our sisters and brothers. And they need daily bread. And so we pray, “Lord, have mercy. And help us do your will.”

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Sometimes it can be hard to imagine what it would be like to encounter Jesus, to have lived when he walked the roads of Galilee, to have been able to hear him, see him. We read the Gospels with a sense of distance from the people and the times which makes us more observers than participants. Until we open the Gospel of John. John’s approach – to tell only a few stories of Jesus but with greater detail and length – is particularly effective in removing some of the barriers to our engagement with Jesus. Somehow in the lively dialogue of his stories, the telling details of the people involved, the careful description of the side characters, we’re drawn into these stories in ways that almost make them seem contemporary. It’s a mark not only of John’s narrative gift, but also of his editorial intent: as he states in several places, he intends his Gospel to be exactly what we experience. He writes so others may see themselves in the stories and so also encounter Jesus for themselves, and his hope and prayer is that by such encounters, others may come to faith. Even those who, like us, are invited to believe without having seen for ourselves.

What’s interesting about the two people we’ve met so far, Nicodemus (last week) and the unnamed Samaritan woman today, is that in a number of ways they represent polar opposites of each other, and yet Jesus engages them, and offers them his grace and life. Both are seeking something, but it turns out Jesus is offering something better. And in their contrasts, it’s likely that each of us can find ourselves in one, if not the other, and so also hear Jesus’ offer to us.

Nicodemus and the woman are in fact a study in contrasts.

Nicodemus is the ultimate insider. A member of an elite sect, the Pharisees, he’s one of the teachers of Israel, the learned in God’s law. He comes to Jesus at midnight because he has everything to lose by this conversation. Jesus is seen by most of the Pharisees as a threat and a blasphemer, but Nicodemus is intrigued by him. But he also knows that he’ll be in serious trouble if he’s seen with Jesus, in addition to the risk of losing status and prestige among his peers. And he comes to Jesus to ask him questions, check his credentials as it were.

The Samaritan woman is the ultimate outsider. She doesn’t even rank the mention of a name. A woman was not to talk to strange men in public, and she’s a Samaritan woman to boot, a member of a race that Jewish people considered half-breeds, heretics, and not to be touched. She speaks with Jesus not at midnight but at broad noon because she’s somehow even outcast from her own people – the women typically would go to the well in the cool of the morning, and together, but here she is all by herself fetching water in the heat of the day. She has absolutely nothing to lose by this conversation with Jesus. Being on the outside fringe of an outside fringe group, she has nothing to fear from her peers, if even she thinks she has any. And Jesus comes to her, not she to him, asking her for a drink.

But look at Jesus. He engages them both in the same way, offering the same thing, as if they are equally deserving and equally in need.

First, he demands complete honesty from both of them. No pretenses are allowed here.

Nicodemus acts as if he’s the teacher, quizzing the pupil. Jesus exposes his weaknesses in understanding God’s law and God’s ways. “You are a teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things?” Jesus asks.

The woman responds to Jesus’ offer of living water with a hope for a pitcher which would never run dry, and would take away the burden of carrying water. Jesus cuts right to the quick and asks her to go fetch her husband. He’s not being mean – he knows she’s been married five times and now is living with a man who is not her husband. But if she’s going to receive what he has to offer, she needs to know that he knows her, the truth about her.

Jesus has amazing gifts to offer both of them. But first he needs to be clear with them: He knows the truth about them, he knows everything they’d rather not have known. But he also still is going to offer them life. They are known, and still loved.

The second thing Jesus does for both of these people is offer far more than they expected to receive.

Nicodemus wants answers, wants to know who Jesus is. Jesus opens up the possibility that not only is Nicodemus loved by God, but the whole world, the whole cosmos is. And that a new birth is possible in the Spirit of God, which will give abundant life.

The woman wants a relief from an onerous and difficult daily task – she’d like running water in her home, basically. Jesus offers her a vision of a life richly filled with living water – with the grace and love of God. A life in which there is no such thing as Samaritan or Jew, male or female, insider or outsider – where she is known with all her sins and still offered life and love.

What’s so powerful about John’s two stories is how we can find ourselves in one of these two people.

Because we’ll either be one or the other, usually.

Some of us will likely identify with the insider, Nicodemus. For insiders, being known as a religious person, a follower of Jesus, can be awkward in social circles or at work. We might believe, but we’re going to keep it pretty quiet. We’ve got too much to lose if people think we’re one of those faith people. And insiders tend to keep faith to themselves even after meeting Jesus – just as Nicodemus kept his faith secret until after the crucifixion.

Others here today might identify with the woman, the outsider. For outsiders, life is about someone telling you that you’re not good enough, or your type of person is unacceptable, or you cannot be loved by God. Outsiders might fear that if Jesus really knew the truth about them, he’d think the same thing. They’ve got little to lose, but also little to hope for. And like the woman, when outsiders find welcome they tend to let others know, too – as she ran to her village to tell of Jesus.

What John does is open up the possibility that we might find ourselves welcomed and loved by Jesus in the same way. Whether you feel like an insider in this world or an outsider, there is invitation here from Jesus.

It will mean complete honesty – we can’t hide behind our pretenses and act as if we’re something we’re not. Jesus knows us completely and would rather we were honest about ourselves.But it also means that we have the joy these two people had of being exposed for who we are and discovering that it doesn’t matter. That we are known fully and still loved. That though there are no pretenses with Jesus, there is grace and forgiveness.

And that means that it’s also true for us, whether we are outsiders or insiders, that Jesus has far more to offer us than we expect or ask.

As he said to the woman, if you had known who it was you were talking to, you’d have asked for more. Whatever it is we want in life – happiness, security, no risks, ease of living, no worries – Jesus doesn’t promise to give us that. We’re not going to find easy answers from Jesus which help us to faith, as Nicodemus wanted, and he’s not about putting in indoor plumbing, which would have helped the woman.

Instead, he offers us the real deal: rich, abundant, full life. Life in the Spirit of God which fills our hearts and souls with meaning and purpose. Life in God’s love which gives us confidence even in the face of suffering and death. Life in the arms of the One who is lifted up on the cross, as Jesus reminds us several times in John’s Gospel, to draw all people to him, all people to the grace of God.

What Jesus has to offer is the life God intended for us all along. Most of John’s Gospel explores how this abundant life, as Jesus calls it in John 10, is different and yet richer than life we think we want. Over 30 times in John’s Gospel life is what is offered in Jesus, God’s Word made flesh. In the two stories yet to come this Lent we’ll find that it’s better than getting our eyesight after being blind, better even than being given back a loved one who has died. It’s life connected to Jesus the vine, filled with the life of God which produces the fruit of love in us for the sake of the world.

As we’ve said several times already this Lent, John tells us these things that we might believe for ourselves that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and believing, have life in his name. Believing in Jesus for us then is not about believing in him for what we think he ought to be for us. It’s believing that he actually has life to offer us that is better, more meaningful, and with greater purpose and joy than anything else we could ever experience.

That he is Messiah in the way he will be Messiah – dying, rising from death, and offering us a loving relationship with the God in whom we are invited to live and move and have our being.

And so we leave it for today.

As to his new Samaritan friend, Jesus says to us, “if you knew the gift of God and who it is who is talking to you, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

If we could see ourselves with Jesus and begin to see what he truly has to offer, maybe even we could ask him and he would give us that living water. I mean, if insiders and outsiders are all welcome, there might be a place for us, too. As the woman said, “he can’t be the Messiah, can he?”

Let’s come to his Table and see for ourselves. And find life in his name, just as he promised.

A new rubric has appeared in the bulletin requesting that we not offer applause following the postlude. Some have asked, “Did someone complain?” The answer is no. The rubric and request came from me, and the responses I’ve received about this gives the occasion for a topic to be discussed here. I realize this practice goes a long way back, perhaps stemming from post-liturgy recitals offered by Dr. Manz.

What is the postlude? I regard it as a part of the liturgy. It is the exclamation point of what just happened, of what we journeyed through as a gathering of God’s people. It also serves as transition: from what we just journeyed through into what we do with that experience, illustrated by the procession out. Therefore, I regard the postlude as a part of the liturgy, and not as a post-liturgy recital.

As a part of a liturgy, it takes its place among many things we do and experience – all of them a part of a flow that begins with our walking into the Nave before the liturgy begins, taking our place, and taking on a frame of mind which is God-directed. When all of the components of the liturgy are “well done” – no single component stands out by itself, but takes its place as a completing piece of the puzzle: the whole of the liturgy. That whole focuses on God and not our selves; God coming to us, and us coming to God. The quote I’ve used often here is from Eric Routley: “People should leave the service not saying ‘what great music they have here’ or ‘what great preaching they have here’ but rather, ‘what a great God these people have!’” The evidence of liturgy done well is the depth of meaningfulness by which we all DO the liturgy as a whole. As I’ve said, this is what I suspect to be the most winsome witness of the liturgy, for all of us there!

What makes me squirm a bit with the applause following the postlude is that it feels like a shift in focus from God and the liturgy to a performer (in this case, the organist). Would we clap after the sermon? After the Prayers of the Church? It is true that spontaneous clapping can be an outward expression of an inward glee. This isn’t quite in that category. I understand that there might be a desire to show appreciation. This can still happen in the same manner that one might express appreciation for effective preaching.

I am grateful that most remain to “experience” the postlude – it is not background to our exit and greeting of each other. This feels very respectful - of the liturgy! I am grateful that folks are appreciative and that is expressed to me often in many other ways.

Now here’s the most important point. None us who serve in leadership roles in the liturgy can dictate what you decide or decide not to do. For me, I suggest. I suggest you sing here. Consider singing this hymn this way. Consider looking at this text this way. Hopefully the suggestions are ways that deepen meaningfulness. However, it is you who must decide to enter in to the suggestions. So can this be in the issue of postludial-postludes. (Applause). I merely suggest we re-examine a long held practice. Perhaps we can have a post-postlude to the postlude conversation!

- Cantor David Cherwien

Sunday’s Adult Education - 9:30 a.m. in the Chapel Lounge

This Sunday, April 3: "The St. John’s Bible: What it is and How it Came to Be.”

Palms and Paschal Garden

Donations for Passion Sunday palms and the Easter paschal garden will be received on Sunday, April 3 and Sunday, April 10. Members of the Worship Committee will be available after each liturgy on those dates to receive your contribution. Checks should be made payable to “Mount Olive Women.”

Because of the significant number of agenda items, the April semi-annual meeting of our congregation will be held following the second liturgy on April 10, 2011.

Agenda items include election of Officers and Directors to the Vestry: Adam Krueger-President, Lisa Nordeen-Vice President, Ann Sorenson-Secretary, Paul Sundquist-Treasurer, Paul Schadewald-Global Missions, Dennis Bidwell-Stewardship, Al Bipes-Worship; reports from the Audit, Mount Olive Foundation, and Capital Campaign Committees; Internship program and proposed Constitution and Bylaw amendments; and endorsement of a resolution of the joint Peace with Justice Committees of the Minneapolis and Saint Paul Area Synods.

Come and let your voice be heard.

One Maundy Thursday Liturgy

Maundy Thursday marks the beginning of the Triduum, the great Three Days in which the church contemplates, remembers, and celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus. In recent years Mount Olive has had both a noon and an evening liturgy.

Given the importance of the foot washing and the stripping of the altar in that day’s liturgy, and given the Gospel reading’s emphasis on the unity of the church, it seemed that it would be better to have one liturgy rather than two on that day. After several years of discussion, the decision was made this year to have only one liturgy on Maundy Thursday (April 21 this year) at 7:00 p.m.

In talking with several of those who have ordinarily attended the noon liturgy, it is apparent that the biggest obstacle to their being present for the evening liturgy is transportation. Driving at night is difficult for some. We are, therefore, going to work at matching those who will be driving to the Maundy Thursday evening liturgy with those in need of transportation to that liturgy.

If you are able to provide transportation to the Maundy Thursday evening liturgy, or if you are in need of transportation to that liturgy, please contact the church office either by phone (612.827.5919), or by email (welcome@mountolivechurch.org). A coordinator will follow up with you once arrangements have been made.

Book Discussion Group

For its meeting on April 9 the book group will discuss the poem Gilgamesh, and for the May 14 meeting, the essay collection Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver.

In 1998, St. John’s Abbey and University commission- ed renowned calligrapher Donald Jackson to produce a hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible. The display will invite you to explore this work of art which unites an ancient Benedictine tradition with the technology and vision of today, illuminating the Word of God for a new millennium.

This exhibit is sponsored by Mount Olive Music and Fine Arts, and will be open to the public before and after all church services and events in April.

April 10 Adult Forum: Prayers in a Time of Trouble

Questions about prayer are common, even in the church and especially in times of difficulty. What effect might our prayers have on God? Can our prayers help shape the future? Do our prayers make a difference? Yet, if God is in charge, why pray? We will explore such questions in view of the place of prayer in the Bible, especially the Old Testament. This forum will be presented by Dr. Terence E. Fretheim, Elva B. Lovell Professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, where he has taught for over forty years. He has authored twenty-two books and more than one hundred articles.

New Members/Inquiry Lunch to be Held on Sunday, April 17

Those interested in joining Mount Olive this spring, or just interesting in learning more about membership at Mount Olive, are invited to a luncheon on Sunday, Apr. 17, following the second liturgy. Leaders of Mount Olive will be present to meet and greet folks, and answer questions about Mount Olive. New members will be received on Sunday, May 1, the Second Sunday of Easter. Please talk to Pastor Crippen if you would like to consider joining at this time, or if you simply would like to talk about membership for a future time.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

God’s will gets blamed for a lot of hard stuff these days. Either someone’s using the excuse of the will of God to do something horrible to someone else, or someone’s using the idea of God’s will to deal with unexpected and painful suffering. While it may be true that God wills some things that are painful or difficult, there’s no way ever to be certain that we know when suffering is God’s will or not. And there’s certainly no valid reason for us ever to invoke God’s will as a rationale for punishing or harming others.

The kingdom of God also has difficulties as a concept. When Christians do think about it, they usually assume it means heaven, life with God after we die. But that sort of reduction to the sweet by-and-by has the awkward problem of completely ignoring most of Jesus’ teaching about his rule and reign, his kingdom. Including the idea in the Lord’s Prayer that we are to ask for God’s kingdom and will to be done here, not just in heaven.

Maybe Jesus knew that we, his followers, would have difficulties with these two concepts; maybe that’s why he included them when he taught the disciples to pray. Whatever we understand about God’s kingdom and God’s will, Jesus invites us to pray for them to come, to be done, to be lived here as they are already lived in heaven.

This prayer Jesus taught us is a guide for our prayer, a way to invite us to deeper and more meaningful conversation with almighty God. If we are to know how to pray for God’s will and kingdom, we need to know what Jesus means by these terms.

We can begin by saying this: Living in God’s reign is living by God’s will.

They’re not just part of the same sentence of the prayer – they’re inextricably linked. When a ruler rules, that means the nation’s subjects follow his or her will. In a democratic society, we follow our own rules that we agree upon – so in the rule or reign of democracy, it presumably is the people’s will that is done. But in monarchy, the kingdom is found where the monarch’s will is obeyed, and certainly in God’s case, the kingdom, the rule of God exists when God’s will is done.

The deep mystery about God is that God chooses to rule without the use of power. Every earthly ruler who is absolute has always kept his or her reign by use of force, power. God rules by becoming one of us and willingly accepting death at our hands.

This means that when we pray to do God’s will, to live in God’s kingdom, it’s the only way we will do so, as God will not force us into obedience. But it also reminds us that God’s will is that we act in the world as God acts.

So God’s will is that we not use power to accomplish what we need, but rather use love, as God did. God will not rule by force or violence – only by inviting us to follow, to willingly offer ourselves as subjects. And in that offering, we have only two jobs: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

When the scribe agrees with Jesus on this in our reading today, Jesus says something very telling: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Living in love of God and love of neighbor – that is God’s will for those who follow God’s reign. That is God’s will for those in God’s kingdom. When we live that way, we live in God’s kingdom, and it is just as it is in heaven for us.

So we know this to be God’s will – for us to live in love of God and love of neighbor. But what is God’s part of this?

This we heard last Sunday: God’s will, God’s part, is also love. Jesus said to Nicodemus in last Sunday’s Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

God’s part of God’s reign is absolute, complete love – love that wills all the world to be saved in Jesus. As Jesus says in Matthew 18 – it is not the will of our heavenly Father that one person, one, be lost. It is this context of God’s amazing love for us – love that died and rose to give us life – that we live our lives of love of God and neighbor.

And we know this about God’s love: Since it is God’s will for the world, it will happen. It will bring about God’s reign, God’s kingdom. We just want to be a part of that.

That’s Luther’s great gift to us. He says God’s will and kingdom will come – but we ask in this prayer that they come in and among us. So, God will love the world, and does. God will save the world, and is doing it.

But we learn from Jesus to ask God to make us a part of that. And this is not asking God to love us – God already does that, and we will ask for forgiveness later. This is asking that God help us be a part of God’s loving action for the world.

What Jesus is saying is that we can only love God and neighbor with God’s gracious help and strength. He invites us to pray regularly for this, to ask God to shape our lives with Christly love and so change our hearts and the world.

So let us pray for God’s rule and God’s will.

Because God’s vision of this world, God’s rule and reign, is a world where all God’s creatures live together in love for each other and love for God. This is no utopia, no wishful thinking – it will happen. All God’s intent, all God’s will for the world is summed up in this vision.

And when we pray this prayer Jesus taught, we sign on to the vision ourselves, we agree that love of God and neighbor is God’s way, and the way we claim for our own. But even more, we put our lives into the hands of God who loves us and who will make this vision happen in us, and so continue to change the world.

Dr. James Echols framed Sunday’s sermon around the question, “How far Love?” Hechallenged us to reflect on our commitments to our neighbors. Dr. Echols’ question isan especially appropriate one in this time of political turmoil in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia and continued recovery from flooding in Pakistan and earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. The tsunami and threat of nuclear disaster in Japan has engendered impassioned discussions among charities about whether to issue widespread calls for aid for Japan. On the one hand, the heartbreaking scenes are moving people to provide immediate assistance specifically designated for the people of Japan. On the other hand, some organizations have cautioned against putting out a call for aid too quickly before the shape of the need is known. These organizations suggest instead a call for undesignated donations to relief organizations for use wherever the needs are greatest, including global needs that do not garner widespread media coverage. This debate shows there are no easy answers to the question “How far Love?”

Love for our neighbor is not simply giving money. It is acting with wisdom and discernment, with recognition of both our limitations and our commitments to give to others as a response to the grace that we have received from God. Love depends on relationships in which we are willing to risk vulnerability and be transformed in the process.

Over the next few months, as Mount Olive’s Director of Global Missions I will be encouraging our committee specifically and our congregation more broadly to contemplate and in some cases to re-evaluate our congregation’s commitments to the wider world. We have strong mutually transformative relationships with Bethania and with ELCA missions. We can build on this strong foundation to ask: What additional relationships

should we develop? Where is the spirit leading us to be agents of peace, hope, fellowship, and reconciliation in the world? What relationships will transform and challenge us as a congregation? In the months ahead, our committee will ask for your suggestions and feedback. In engaging these questions, Mount Olive will continue to wrestle with the question, “How far Love?” I cannot think of a more important question for us in this Lenten season.

This Sunday, March 27: "The Spirituality of Taize (part 2/2)," led by Dr. Dirk Lange. Dr. Lange is Associate Professor for Worship at Luther Seminary and is a former Taize monk.

Tuesday Noon Bible Study

All are invited to come to Mount Olive at noon on Tuesdays for lunch and Bible study with Sunday’s preacher. This informal study will look at the readings for the next Sunday and listen to where the Spirit guides the conversation. Begun on Mar. 15, this study with Pr. Crippen will continue beyond Lent, and when Mount Olive has a Vicar, the Vicar will lead the study on weeks he or she is preaching. Bring a lunch to the west lounge at noon, and the group will finish by 1:00 p.m.

Palms and Paschal Garden

Donations for Passion Sunday palms and the Easter paschal garden will be received on Sunday, April 3 and Sunday, April 10. Members of the Worship Committee will be available after each liturgy on those dates to receive your contribution. Checks should be made payable to “Mount Olive Women.”

Help Us Solve a Mystery

A set of pottery communion vessels has been stored in the safe in the working sacristy for some years and its history has been lost. If you have any information regarding when it might have been obtained, by whom it was donated and in honor of what occasion or person, or for what occasions it might have been used, please contact the church office. We do know that it predates Pastor Wegener, so it is likely 25-30 years old.

“Lord, Teach Us to Pray”Midweek Lent at Mount Olive

For the Wednesday Lenten services this year we are focusing on the Lord’s Prayer, and what our Lord Jesus teaches us about our prayer life with God. The midweek schedule, March 16 through April 13, is Eucharist at 12:00 noon, followed by a soup lunch at 1:00 p.m. In the evening, there will be a soup supper at 6:00 p.m., and Evening Prayer at 7:00 p.m. The preaching at the noon Eucharist will be reflections on the Lord’s Prayer, and the same meditation will be shared during the evening soup supper, with opportunity for further conversation at the meal.

March is Minnesota FoodShare Month

The need this year is as great as ever, so we encourage you to be generous with your donations of money or non-perishable food items for our local food shelf during the month of March. This drive fills the shelves of 300 food shelves across the state of Minnesota. Fifty percent of all food shelf recipients are children, twenty percent of all adult recipients are elderly, and sixty percent of all adults who use the food shelves are the working poor. We especially encourage you to consider giving a financial contribution via your blue envelopes instead of groceries, noting that it is for the food shelf. For every ten dollars donated, food shelf workers can buy $40 worth of food through various purchasing resources not available to the general public. So monetary donations go much farther.

Art display in the Chapel LoungeApril 1-30, 2011Illustrations from the St. John’s Bible

In 1998, St. John’s Abbey and University commission- ed renowned calligrapher Donald Jackson to produce a hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible. The display will invite you to explore this work of art which unites an ancient Benedictine tradition with the technology and vision of today, illuminating the Word of God for a new millennium. This exhibit is sponsored by Mount Olive Music and Fine Arts, and will be open to the public before and after all church services and events in April.

Book Discussion Group

For its meeting on April 9 the book group will discuss the poem Gilgamesh, and for the May 14 meeting, the essay collection Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver. The Book Discussion group meets each month on the second Saturday, at 10:00 a.m. in the Chapel Lounge. All readers welcome!

Disaster Relief: Japan and Beyond

During a large disaster that requires significant amounts of money like the one in Japan, ELCA Disaster Response and other relief organizations often find it challenging to continue to provide strong support to other emergency situations. Recently, there have been many other natural disasters and political upheavals. Currently ELCA Disaster Response is also responding to recent emergencies in Libya, Egypt, and New Zealand, among other countries. Congregation members can make checks out to Mount Olive and designate donations to Japan by writing “Japan” on their envelopes or on the memo line of their check. Mount Olive will send that money to ELCA Disaster Response specifically for emergency relief in Japan. Or if you choose, you can also simply write “ELCA International Response” on your envelope or check memo line, and we will designate this portion of donations to ELCA Disaster Relief’s International Fund to be used wherever it is currently needed most. Any donation made by individual members to the emergency in Japan or to ELCA Disaster Response’s International Fund will be in addition to the regular congregational commitments to global missions.

Wish List Update

Hello all! We've had a couple more anonymous donations from some very generous members recently. If you're in the office area, you may notice a new coat rack. You will soon see two new coffee tables in the West Reception Area that will match the reception desk and the mahogany woods of the new armchairs and legs of the new sofas. New items on the Wish List will include two new storage units and mirrors for the vestibules of both restrooms. We are trying to source a nursing chair for the ladies' restroom as well. Fair linens are being priced, and those will be added to the Wish List soon. The most pressing items to be donated are another 17-21 upholstered stack chairs, which will enable us to move the uncomfortable metal folding chairs out of the East Assembly Room. Many of you are noticing and using these new chairs and enjoy the comfort and convenience of upholstery and sturdy arms. We'd also like to get a reading table for the new library space. So if any of you have a bit of extra cash and you'd like to see the continued upgrading of our beautiful new space, please feel free to sign your name to the Wish List. Keep in mind that many more Godly Play items are listed, as well, and Diana Hellerman would certainly welcome any of these terrific educational pieces. If you would like to donate an item from the Wish List, please note that it is posted just inside the church office; sign your name and contact number next to the item you're donating and you will be contacted regarding final price. There may be some delivery charges in addition to the price you see listed. Checks should be made payable to Mount Olive clearly designated on the envelope that this is for the Wish List – please also list the item you're donating. The counters will see that your check is directed to the proper account, and you will be credited on your annual statement for tax purposes. Thank you for your generosity! Brian Jacobs, Wish List Coordinator

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Week 1: “Heart to Heart” Introduction and First Petition, the Lord’s PrayerWednesday, 16 March 2011

Pr. Joseph G. CrippenTexts: Romans 8:19-28; Luke 11:1-11

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

When I was a child, one of my pastors talked about prayer at Vacation Bible School. In what must certainly be good news for anyone who’s ever taught children in Sunday School or VBS, I’ve never forgotten what he said. Our pastor said that prayer is a “heart to heart talk with God.” And the gift of that very simple idea has been profound in my life – somehow it connected with me that prayer isn’t about the right words, or the right place, or even the right posture. I’ve learned from those words over my life that prayer is not about asking for things, or wondering if “prayer works.” It’s not even limited to only saying nice things to God. It’s about my heart, your heart, touching the heart of God.

Or perhaps we should say it the other way: it’s about the heart of God touching our hearts. Because the truth is, most times we don’t know how to reach God, what to say, how to pray. Like Jesus’ disciples, we long for deeper connection with God, and need Jesus to teach us.

The prayer Jesus gave them when they asked, the Lord’s Prayer, is more than words to say. It’s a guide to our prayer life, a guide to our heart-to-heart talk with God.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with praying the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus taught it. We do it all the time in our liturgy, in our private devotions, in so many places. There is wisdom and simplicity in these words Jesus taught us to pray. What we seek to understand, however, is that there is so much more Jesus would have us know through this prayer.

On Wednesdays this Lent we’ll look at this prayer in depth and meditate on what Jesus is teaching us. We’ll consider the Prayer as a guide to our whole life of prayer, our focus on God, our relationship with God. In 1 Thessalonians 5 Paul invites us to pray without ceasing. And the Lord’s Prayer shows us what such a life might be like.

Today, Jesus invites us to a new thing: that we can turn to God, as if God were our heavenly Father, our heavenly Parent, and simply be blessed in that relationship. This is an astonishing thing we too often take for granted – that we have access to God, and that God desires the deepest intimacy with us, the intimacy of a loving family.

This is what Martin Luther said about this gift:"With these words God wants to attract us, so that we believe God is truly our Father and we are truly God’s children, in order that we may ask God boldly and with complete confidence, just as loving children ask their loving father."

God wishes to attract us, Luther says, to let us know that in fact we have this loving relationship with God, to trust that God is not distant but always desiring this intimacy.

And it’s true that many people today struggle with the male image of God as Father, and understandably so. But the deeper truth behind the gender is the image of loving Parent – that God wishes that we have this deep and abiding intimacy.

That’s what Jesus is saying to the disciples today – know this truth: you are beloved to God and may talk to God about anything. Isn’t that the most amazing thing? Jesus actually says God will listen to us, willingly! We don’t need to find another person to give us access to God. God, the one who is holy, whose name is hallowed, wants to hear you. Wants to love you. Wants to touch your heart.

We need to learn how to pray from Jesus, and we will do that this Lent and all our lives. And Paul reminds us that God’s Spirit will even pray for us when we can’t. But we don’t need to do anything to make prayer possible – the gift of the Son of God is that God is simply waiting for us with open heart and open love. And God promises to listen!

And this is, in many ways, how we hallow God’s name – with our lives of prayer which shape us.

Living intimately with God will make us new people, people like God. Instead of seeing God’s holiness as something that makes God inaccessible to us and distant, Jesus invites us to share God’s holiness. To be shaped by it. As we learn to trust God, live in full awareness of God’s grace and Word in our lives, we are made different. And we honor God’s name by the new lives we live.

Luther reminds us that there is nothing we can do to hallow God’s name, to make God’s name holy – God is just that. What we ask in this first petition is that God’s name may be made holy in and among us. That we do honor to the God who loves us by our lives lived in God’s grace and forgiveness. That we speak God’s name in our prayer and with our lives of mercy and justice in the world.

In some ways, it’s the point of God’s heart-to-heart connection with us, as we remembered last week on Ash Wednesday. Then we asked that we be given new hearts, like God’s, which beat in rhythm with God’s and show God’s love and grace to the world. God invites us, needs us to pray that we might be shaped by God into the people we were meant to be.

As we ask Jesus to teach us to pray, let’s also celebrate that God’s heart is reaching out to ours.

Let’s take Jesus up on this offer – that we can open our hearts, newly remade by God, to God, and share a new, intimate, and gracious relationship with God. Let’s not take prayer for granted, but rejoice in the amazing gift it is for us.

And then let us pray. And be amazed at what happens in our lives when God’s heart connects with us and we are forever changed, our lives hallowed and blessed for the sake of the world.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

We are saved by faith through the grace of Jesus and not by works. This is the fundamental teaching of Luther. Luther came to this conclusion through his extensive studies of the Old and New Testaments.

Paul, who interpreted the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus for new Christian congregations through his letters, came to the conclusion that we are saved by the gift of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and not by the keeping of the law.

Though these two theological teachings are basically the same, I like the word “law” as opposed to the word “works” because it may give Christians the idea that they have nothing to do but believe in God and certain aspects about God. Faith leads to works.

For instance, many Christians use the example of Abraham as the greatest model of our faith, whose call is read in the first reading (Genesis 12:1-4), and referred to by Paul in the second reading (Romans 4:1-5, 13-17) for the Second Sunday in Lent. Abraham not only believed in God, he believed God. He trusted that the unknown journey upon which God was to send him - away from his roots and everything he knew, fraught with danger and uncertainty - would gain God’s favor for himself, his family and all the families of the earth. God promised this to Abraham and Abraham believed God. However, Abraham certainly had to work and do some hard things. He also messed up a lot.

Abraham was saved by grace, because though he sinned (mostly by loosing his faith in God’s plan for his journey and trying to change it at times), he continued to believe in God and returned to trusting God’s plan.

It feels good to believe that we are saved if we believe in God and certain aspects about God. It is almost impossible to believe God if we do not have a relationship with God. It is impossible to believe God if we do not allow ourselves to be used by God. Like Abraham, to allow God to use us takes work.

Are we saved by works? No, we are saved by faith, in the trust we have by going forward with God’s plan and that takes work.

Are we called by God to earn our salvation by keeping the law? No, we are called to love, to maintain a loving relationship with God and our neighbor, which will lead us to keep the law of God and in most cases the laws of society.

Like Abraham, we will mess up, but through the grace of God in Jesus we are forgiven and we are saved.

This Sunday, March 20: "The Spirituality of Taize," led by Dr. Dirk Lange. Dr. Lange is Associate Professor for Worship at Luther Seminary and is a former Taize monk.

Preaching this Sunday

Mount Olive welcomes the Rev. Dr. James Echols, president of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, to the pulpit this Sunday, March 20. LSTC is one of eight seminaries of the ELCA. Dr. Echols is in town for an event with former Augustana Synod pastors.

Tuesday Noon Bible Study

All are invited to come to Mount Olive at noon on Tuesdays for lunch and Bible study with Sunday’s preacher. This informal study will look at the readings for the next Sunday and listen to where the Spirit guides the conversation. Beginning on Mar. 15, this study with Pr. Crippen will continue beyond Lent, and when Mount Olive has a Vicar, the Vicar will lead the study on weeks he or she is preaching. Bring a lunch to the west lounge at noon, and the group will finish by 1:00 p.m.

Help Us Solve a Mystery

A set of pottery communion vessels has been stored in the safe in the working sacristy for some years and its history has been lost. If you have any information regarding when it might have been obtained, by whom it was donated and in honor of what occasion or person, or for what occasions it might have been used, please contact the church office. We do know that it predates Pastor Wegener, so it is likely 25-30 years old.

“Lord, Teach Us to Pray”Midweek Lent at Mount Olive

For the Wednesday Lenten services this year we will focus on the Lord’s Prayer, and what our Lord Jesus teaches us about our prayer life with God. The midweek schedule, March 16 through April 13, is Eucharist at 12:00 noon, followed by a soup lunch at 1:00 p.m. In the evening, there will be a soup supper at 6:00 p.m., and Evening Prayer at 7:00 p.m. The preaching at the noon Eucharist will be reflections on the Lord’s Prayer, and the same meditation will be shared during the evening soup supper, with opportunity for further conversation at the meal.

March is Minnesota FoodShare Month

The need this year is as great as ever, so we encourage you to be generous with your donations of money or non-perishable food items for our local food shelf during the month of March. This drive fills the shelves of 300 food shelves across the state of Minnesota.

Fifty percent of all food shelf recipients are children, twenty percent of all adult recipients are elderly, and sixty percent of all adults who use the food shelves are the working poor.

We especially encourage you to consider giving a financial contribution via your blue envelopes instead of groceries, noting that it is for the food shelf. For every ten dollars donated, food shelf workers can buy $40 worth of food through various purchasing resources not available to the general public. So monetary donations go much farther.

Field Trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts – This Sunday!

It's not too late to sign up for the trip to the Minneapolis Art Institute to see "The Mourners” exhibit. Contact the church office by phone or email (welcome@mountolivechurch.org) or Lora Dundek (lhdundek@usfamily.net)by Wednesday, March 16 if you'd like to go.

We need to let the MIA know how many of us will be touring. We'll leave from church at 12:30, stop for brunch, and then go to the museum.

For more information on the exhibit, check out the MIA's website at http://www.artsmia.org. Please join us!

Book Discussion Group

For its meeting on April 9 the book group will discuss the poem Gilgamesh, and for the May 14 meeting, the essay collection Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver. The Book Discussion group meets each month on the second Saturday, at 10:00 a.m. in the Chapel Lounge. All readers welcome!

Disaster Relief: Japan and Beyond

During a large disaster that requires significant amounts of money like the one in Japan, ELCA Disaster Response and other relief organizations often find it challenging to continue to provide strong support to other emergency situations. Recently, there have been many other natural disasters and political upheavals. Currently ELCA Disaster Response is also responding to recent emergencies in Libya, Egypt, and New Zealand, among other countries.

Congregation members can make checks out to Mount Olive and designate donations to Japan by writing “Japan” on their envelopes or on the memo line of their check. Mount Olive will send that money to ELCA Disaster Response specifically for emergency relief in Japan. Or if you choose, you can also simply write “ELCA International Response” on your envelope or check memo line, and we will designate this portion of donations to ELCA Disaster Relief’s International Fund to be used wherever it is currently needed most.

Any donation made by individual members to the emergency in Japan or to ELCA Disaster Response’s International Fund will be in addition to the regular congregational commitments to global missions.

Art display in the Chapel Lounge, April 1-30, 2011Illustrations from the St. John’s Bible

In 1998, St. John’s Abbey and University commission- ed renowned calligrapher Donald Jackson to produce a hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible. The display will invite you to explore this work of art which unites an ancient Benedictine tradition with the technology and vision of today, illuminating the Word of God for a new millennium.

This exhibit is sponsored by Mount Olive Music and Fine Arts, and will be open to the public before and after all church services and events in April.

Journey Into Lent 2011

This Lenten devotional book is an invitation to step into the journey of Lent with intentionality and awareness by taking on a traditional Lenten discipline: fasting for the good of the body, prayer for the good of the spirit, acts of love for the good of the neighbor. Copies of this booklet are available in the narthex at church. If you prefer to read this devotional online, it is available as a weblog with daily posts at www.journeyintolent.blogspot.com.

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Peter and I enjoy reading comics and watching movies about superheroes. I don’t know if it’s a boy thing, but I have been a fan of Spider-Man since I was a little boy myself, and it’s something my son and I can enjoy together. Just the other week he was asking me about the reason why Kryptonite was so problematic for Superman. I think I got the answer correct – but if not, we’ll figure it out together.

In a time when movies about superheroes are proliferating more than any time I can remember, we’re having some fun. But this week it occurred to me that the superhero mythologies, especially that of Superman, help expose a common problem we have with Jesus. The early church was clear and definite in preserving the paradox of the witnesses that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and raised from the dead, was fully God and fully human. Not just God slumming it on earth, appearing to be human – fully human, one of us. And not just a man who somehow had power to heal and was a good teacher, but fully God incarnate. Keeping both in tension is not always easy. And what I’ve found is that in American Christianity there are many who mistake Jesus for Superman – a divine visitor to our planet who isn’t really one of us. Oddly enough, there’s another whole side of the American Christian experience that has difficulty thinking of Jesus as anything but a human teacher and revolutionary prophet.

So when he faces something difficult, we sometimes think, “That was easy for him – he’s God, after all.” Or when we talk about his teaching and leading as a man, we forget he’s the eternal Word and Son of God, part of the Trinity from before creation. But today the connection of these two identities of Jesus is the issue that confronts him as he faces the core of his sense of identity.

In the Gospel readings for the rest of our Sundays in Lent this year we’ll be seeing Jesus in the words of the evangelist John. John paints a picture of Jesus by lifting up and highlighting specific encounters and meetings with Jesus, and invites us as the readers and hearers to see through the eyes of Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man born blind, and from Martha, Mary and Lazarus, and learn what Jesus was and is for them. And John’s whole point, as he states near the end of the Gospel, is to have you and me, the readers and hearers, come to know Jesus ourselves and believe he is the Messiah, God’s Son, and in believing, have life in his name.

But today we have Matthew – the only non-Johannine Gospel of this season. That’s because the Church has long seen a parallel between the forty days of our Lenten journey and the forty days Jesus spent in the desert to begin his ministry. And we need this wilderness story, which John does not tell, to introduce our time with Jesus this Lent. Because as much as we need to know what we think about Jesus, who he is, and whether we believe, at this pivotal point in Jesus’ life, he needs to know the same thing.

It is Jesus’ time of temptation that dominates the account of his forty wilderness days.

And there’s something deep and mysterious going on here that’s fundamental to everything we are asked to believe about Jesus. In many ways, the temptation account highlights what it means for Jesus to be fully God and fully human.

John tells us that Jesus is God’s Word made flesh, living among us. The other Gospels address that Jesus is the Son of God most clearly right before this episode. In Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, God the Father declares that this is God the Son, well-beloved. And Jesus’ temptations are all focused on what that means for him as a human being. And whether God the Son truly will do what he has come to earth to accomplish. Or whether he won’t be able to. For Jesus, this is the question: does the eternal Son of God want to follow through with this plan to be fully human with us, this plan to save us?

Each temptation tests Jesus at key points of this plan of God, and each foreshadows the cross and his suffering.

Jesus is forty days in the wilderness without food. He’s famished, Matthew says. There’s nothing complicated about Satan’s temptation here – make stones into bread. You’re hungry – so eat.

But here’s the temptation: the eternal Son of God, one of three Persons in One God, has chosen to take on our lot, our full humanity. And that means a willingness to suffer through all the indignities and pains of human life. Including hunger. But also potentially any suffering. Here he has a temptation – don’t see this through. You could, as God’s Son, eliminate any of that human suffering or pain, with a word. You don’t really have to deal with all that messy, humanity stuff, do you?

How often would that have tempted Jesus – to wipe away his pain with a word? It’s the same question he faces in Gethsemane and on the cross – will he save himself? But Jesus chooses to stay the course here, and experience all we experience, without aid or help.

Then Jesus is taken to a high place, the top of the temple, and asked: do you trust God the Father? Jump and see whether you are loved. Here is mystery at its depth for us. How can we understand how the Triune God lives? What does it mean that the eternal Son of God leaves the communion of the Trinity and comes here, joining our flesh, and living among us?

We don’t know. But we do know this – there were times the Son felt deeply isolated. And how could that not be? Fully God, yet fully human – and that human flesh made a deep separation from the joy of life in the Spirit and the Father that the Son had always known. In Gethsemane and on the cross, the Son once again experiences that isolation. Surely now after 40 days of painful wandering and fasting, Jesus must have wondered “is it worth it? “How do I know that I’ve not been abandoned here?” So Satan says, test it out – see if you can be pulled out of this existence back to the existence you loved. But Jesus chooses to trust that he is not alone.

Lastly, Jesus is offered the whole war in one moment. Satan offers to give up the rebellion. Think of it – the Son of God comes here, knowing it will likely end in suffering and death, to win us back from evil, to bring us back to God in love, to defeat death and the devil. If he thought of anything in these forty days it must have been – can I do this? Will I accomplish my mission? And now Satan is offering to give, to concede the whole battle. With one small complication – the Son of God bows down and worships the Rebel.

And Jesus decides the end isn’t worth those means – how we are brought back is as important as whether we are. He doesn’t know yet whether he’ll be faithful to his mission and accomplish it. But he knows that if he accepts this offer, while it looks as if he’s gained the world, he’s lost everything. That there are worse things than self-sacrifice and death. And that bringing us back into love of God and love of neighbor is not going to be accomplished by power and might.

So what are we to do with this story? Jesus overcomes the temptations and so is able to save us, do his mission. Is there anything else we can take from this?

I think the key is that we begin to recognize that Jesus is the true human being, the one the Son had in mind when he was creating us. Back in the beginning, when Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were creating, this was the human being God had in mind.

First, a human being who would live in the flesh, and know that though suffering and pain were part of that existence, that true happiness was not necessarily found in removing suffering and pain as much as in trusting in the Word of God who is the source of life. And so we learn from Jesus not to expect God to magically fix all suffering – rather to trust in God’s amazing presence to redeem all our human experiences and make them holy and healing.

And second, a human being who would live with the reality that sometimes the presence of God’s love would seem far distant, would live with the experience of God’s absence, and yet trust God’s love without putting it to the test. And so we learn from Jesus not to unreasonably stake our faith on whether we “feel” God near us – that is, not to expect that if we don’t have the sense of God we want we’ll just reject God, but rather that we learn to live in trust of God’s abiding and ever-present love, even when we can’t sense it.

And third, a human being who will always keep almighty God at the center of worship and existence, who will not see any means as worthy of even good ends, godly ends. And so we learn from Jesus not to do whatever it takes to accomplish what we think God has in mind for us, but rather to focus our lives on God’s priorities, God’s call to us, and stay that course, no matter how difficult it is.

This is why Paul takes such great pains today to parallel Adam – who stands for all of us – and Jesus. Only Jesus, ironically the one who is fully God, ever lives out fully what it is to be fully human. And it isn’t because he had all these divine attributes that helped him. In this temptation story he’s left only to his humanity. And his trust and faith. No miracles save him, no fancy rescues. And so he shows us our destiny, and becomes our leader in our pilgrimage.

The rest of this Lent we’ll now begin to see and understand even more about this Jesus, this Son of God. And see if we believe that for ourselves.

For today we simply look at this One who lived and experienced all we live and experience, and showed us it was actually possible to live fully in this human life. Because Jesus was truly human, he can be for us a model and guide, someone we can learn to follow and copy.

But because he was also truly God he can make this happen in us. That will become clear in the light of the Resurrection. And that’s the other thing we want to learn this Lent, if we believe he is truly God’s Son. Because if we come to believe that, then we will find incredible, rich, abundant life in his name. And the power of the Spirit of God to also become truly human ourselves, just like Jesus.

Let’s take this journey together. Let’s see Jesus and see what we can see. Let’s see what we come to know about him. What we come to believe about him. Will it change your life? Come and see.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Did you ever stop to consider that other people might think we’re a little strange for what we’re doing here today? Think about it: we all get a messy black mark of an instrument of death – the cross – smeared on our foreheads. We all confess that each of us is a sinful person who has disobeyed God regularly. We’re reminded that our lives are not our own to live as we choose, but we belong to God. And we listen to readings from the Bible which threaten us with punishment from God, call us to drop everything we’re doing and return to God, and tell us to completely re-orient our lives from where they are now headed, for where they are now headed is toward death.

This isn’t the most attractive and inviting event we’ve ever attended. It’s hard to imagine the culture in which we live embracing what we do and say here today. It’s not exactly the power of positive thinking, is it? And many would say it’s simply depressing. In fact, I once had a Lutheran pastor tell me that his church didn’t do confession because it was too depressing and it wasn’t attractive to visitors.

But we come here every year on Ash Wednesday and do these things because we know the truth. We mark off forty days of Lent each year because we know the truth. We remind ourselves of things that lots of people would find unnecessarily depressing because we know the truth.

And the truth is we’re all going to die. We don’t know when. But we know it is so. In our funeral liturgy, we commit the body to its rest saying “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” And today we were all told that those words are in each of our futures, for we heard: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We Christians believe we must face not only the truth about our mortality and our sinful lives, but let that truth, and the truth about God, shape our lives.

But of course human beings tend to ignore that ultimately we are ashes and dust and no more.

We seem so substantial, our lives so solid and real. We prefer to live with that delusion most times. Making plans for today, tomorrow, even years ahead as if we’ve got that guaranteed. Of course, all of us have experiences where that delusion was shattered, and we faced the reality of death when we did not want to or expect to. The foolishness we engage in is that we’re ever surprised by death.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: the human body is composed of over 90% water. Remove the water and we’re a little pile of a couple of pounds of chemicals, salt; dirt. We are so flimsy, so insubstantial, so transient. Genesis says we began from the dust of the ground. Reality says we will return to that dust.

Today we remember that. Because we too often forget. We say, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” because we don’t remember it. We set up our own little kingdoms on earth, our own complicated and busy lives, our own hopes and expectations, as if we had all the power and control, and as if we had all the time in the world.

Remember you are dust: our faith reminds us of our mortality so that we can focus our lives on what is truly necessary. If you’re on a sinking ship it matters little how much money you make, or whether your hair looks good, or whether you won an argument that morning. All that matters is that the ship is sinking, and you need to face that reality. Ash Wednesday is our wake-up call to our mortality.

And this remembrance forces us to consider our direction in life – and to that question God’s Word also speaks today.

The Scriptures are full of exhortations to new life, to repentance and turning to God, to putting our values, our treasure, in the right place, so our heart is there also. The assumption of the Scriptures is that we’re heading in the wrong direction and need to be awakened, redirected. Their assumption is that the status quo is ultimately doomed and we would be wise to understand that sooner rather than later.

Jesus’ words in our Gospel today are so typical of all of God’s Word: Don’t save up for yourselves things that moths and rust and thieves can take away. Instead, store up treasures that keep – focus your lives on the things that will last. And the things of this world do not last.

That’s what we hear from Joel and Paul today, too. Joel’s dire warnings of God’s anger are followed by calls for everyone – even brides and grooms at the altar – to drop what they’re doing and change their lives, return to God for mercy and forgiveness. Paul urges, with much the same intensity as Joel, that people be reconciled to God in Christ.

Because this is also truth: Joel and Paul and Jesus and the rest of the Scriptures all assume that while we are mortal and dying, in God is life. That’s the joy of the urgency. That’s the good news: that we are mortal and sinful, but if we turn to God, we will not only be forgiven, but given new life. That as much as we’re headed in the wrong direction in our lives, we find healing and hope in turning to God’s direction.

Return to the Lord your God, who is gracious and merciful, Joel says. Slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. It is the graciousness and mercy of God which is our joy, our goal, our life. Life in God’s steadfast and abundant love, glimpsed as we gather around this Table of Life again today. First we gathered around it to be reminded of our mortality. Now a second time we will come up to the Table, this time to receive life.

At the center of our proclamation is the truth that God has come to join our mortality, has taken it on and transformed it. This is the true treasure which sustains our hearts.

God became the very dust God used to make us, and so redeemed that dust. God answered all our grief and sorrow which strikes us when we are faced with our mortality by becoming the answer: I am with you in your pain, even in your death, and I will hold you and even transform death into life. God came to lead us into a new way which is shaped by God’s love and forgiveness, and is no longer a way of death because God has ended death’s power over us.

There really isn’t much more to be said, is there?

We are dust, and we will return to dust. That is the truth. We must remember that. Only the waters of baptism can fill that dust, revive us, and make us children of God. And those waters are the source of our life.

Return to the Lord your God, then. Find God’s mercy and grace, God’s steadfast and abundant love. It is yours. It is the world’s. That, also, is the truth. It’s the only reality that matters, because it’s the only reality that changes our death, our dustiness, into life and healing, water-filled grace.

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Did you ever stop to consider that other people might think we’re a little strange for what we’re doing here today? Think about it: we all get a messy black mark of an instrument of death – the cross – smeared on our foreheads. We all confess that each of us is a sinful person who has disobeyed God regularly. We’re reminded that our lives are not our own to live as we choose, but we belong to God. And we listen to readings from the Bible which threaten us with punishment from God, call us to drop everything we’re doing and return to God, and tell us to completely re-orient our lives from where they are now headed, for where they are now headed is toward death.

This isn’t the most attractive and inviting event we’ve ever attended. It’s hard to imagine the culture in which we live embracing what we do and say here today. It’s not exactly the power of positive thinking, is it? And many would say it’s simply depressing. In fact, I once had a Lutheran pastor tell me that his church didn’t do confession because it was too depressing and it wasn’t attractive to visitors.

But we come here every year on Ash Wednesday and do these things because we know the truth. We mark off forty days of Lent each year because we know the truth. We remind ourselves of things that lots of people would find unnecessarily depressing because we know the truth.

And the truth is we’re all going to die. We don’t know when. But we know it is so. In our funeral liturgy, we commit the body to its rest saying “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” And today we were all told that those words are in each of our futures, for we heard: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We Christians believe we must face not only the truth about our mortality and our sinful lives, but let that truth, and the truth about God, shape our lives.

But of course human beings tend to ignore that ultimately we are ashes and dust and no more.

We seem so substantial, our lives so solid and real. We prefer to live with that delusion most times. Making plans for today, tomorrow, even years ahead as if we’ve got that guaranteed. Of course, all of us have experiences where that delusion was shattered, and we faced the reality of death when we did not want to or expect to. The foolishness we engage in is that we’re ever surprised by death.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: the human body is composed of over 90% water. Remove the water and we’re a little pile of a couple of pounds of chemicals, salt; dirt. We are so flimsy, so insubstantial, so transient. Genesis says we began from the dust of the ground. Reality says we will return to that dust.

Today we remember that. Because we too often forget. We say, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” because we don’t remember it. We set up our own little kingdoms on earth, our own complicated and busy lives, our own hopes and expectations, as if we had all the power and control, and as if we had all the time in the world.

Remember you are dust: our faith reminds us of our mortality so that we can focus our lives on what is truly necessary. If you’re on a sinking ship it matters little how much money you make, or whether your hair looks good, or whether you won an argument that morning. All that matters is that the ship is sinking, and you need to face that reality. Ash Wednesday is our wake-up call to our mortality.And this remembrance forces us to consider our direction in life – and to that question God’s Word also speaks today.

The Scriptures are full of exhortations to new life, to repentance and turning to God, to putting our values, our treasure, in the right place, so our heart is there also. The assumption of the Scriptures is that we’re heading in the wrong direction and need to be awakened, redirected. Their assumption is that the status quo is ultimately doomed and we would be wise to understand that sooner rather than later.

Jesus’ words in our Gospel today are so typical of all of God’s Word: Don’t save up for yourselves things that moths and rust and thieves can take away. Instead, store up treasures that keep – focus your lives on the things that will last. And the things of this world do not last.

That’s what we hear from Joel and Paul today, too. Joel’s dire warnings of God’s anger are followed by calls for everyone – even brides and grooms at the altar – to drop what they’re doing and change their lives, return to God for mercy and forgiveness. Paul urges, with much the same intensity as Joel, that people be reconciled to God in Christ.

Because this is also truth: Joel and Paul and Jesus and the rest of the Scriptures all assume that while we are mortal and dying, in God is life. That’s the joy of the urgency. That’s the good news: that we are mortal and sinful, but if we turn to God, we will not only be forgiven, but given new life. That as much as we’re headed in the wrong direction in our lives, we find healing and hope in turning to God’s direction.

Return to the Lord your God, who is gracious and merciful, Joel says. Slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. It is the graciousness and mercy of God which is our joy, our goal, our life. Life in God’s steadfast and abundant love, glimpsed as we gather around this Table of Life again today. First we gathered around it to be reminded of our mortality. Now a second time we will come up to the Table, this time to receive life.

At the center of our proclamation is the truth that God has come to join our mortality, has taken it on and transformed it. This is the true treasure which sustains our hearts.

God became the very dust God used to make us, and so redeemed that dust. God answered all our grief and sorrow which strikes us when we are faced with our mortality by becoming the answer: I am with you in your pain, even in your death, and I will hold you and even transform death into life. God came to lead us into a new way which is shaped by God’s love and forgiveness, and is no longer a way of death because God has ended death’s power over us.There really isn’t much more to be said, is there?

We are dust, and we will return to dust. That is the truth. We must remember that. Only the waters of baptism can fill that dust, revive us, and make us children of God. And those waters are the source of our life.

Return to the Lord your God, then. Find God’s mercy and grace, God’s steadfast and abundant love. It is yours. It is the world’s. That, also, is the truth. It’s the only reality that matters, because it’s the only reality that changes our death, our dustiness, into life and healing, water-filled grace.

“… and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.”

The birth of Jesus was announced by an angel to a band of shepherds who were “keeping watch over their flock by night.” The angel’s announcement – we are told - was accompanied by the light of God’s glory which “shone round about them.”

Some time later, it was another light, the light of a star that led wise men from the east to the place where the child Jesus and his parents were, so that the Magi might worship him.

It is fitting that Jesus’ birth – his advent – among us was accompanied in these ways by light because He was and is God’s gift of light to this world, mired as it so often is, in darkness.

In Jesus, according to scripture, was life and his life was the light of all humankind. His light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not, can not, overcome it. (John 1:4-5)

Jesus was and is God’s gift of light to the world.

“The people who walked in darkness”, says scripture, “have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined.” (Is. 9:2)“I am the light of the world,” Jesus said And by what he said, and what he did, He brought light:

Feeding those whose stomachs were empty, Speaking good news to those who had only heard bad news, Embracing those considered untouchable, Welcoming outcasts, Forgiving sinners, Opening blind eyes, Healing the sick, Restoring to life those whose life had ended.

In these many and various ways, Jesus brought light to our dark world. And even when the forces of darkness conspired to extinguish his light, God raised him up so that his brightness would continue to shine.

And we, brothers and sister, are among those who have been drawn to His light, attracted by its power to reveal the truth, drawn by its ability to illumine the path by which we walk.

And because we have been drawn to the light that is Jesus, we gather here each Easter eve to sit in this darkened room – symbolic of how our world has been darkened by Good Friday, by death, by dashed hopes and lost dreams.

We sit in that darkness and wait, until that moment when a single (albeit rather large) candle is brought into the room, a candle whose light shatters the darkness and rolls back the shadows of death and despair.

And we hear the cry, “The Light of Christ”

And for the gift of Christ and his holy light we sing our response, “Thanks be to God”.

The light of Christ. Thanks be to God.

“I am the light of the world”, he said. “The light no darkness can overcome.”

And today, this Feast day of the Transfiguration, we hear again of how Jesus climbed to the top of the mountain. And there his appearance changed, He was transformed. It was as if his humanity faded into the background and his divinity came entirely to the fore. His face shone as if it was the sun itself. His clothing glowed as if they’d been washed in pure light. And the voice of God spoke from out of a cloud saying, “This is my beloved son, with Him I am well pleased.Listen to Him.”

Brothers & Sisters, here is the good news, the wonder the mystery, the challenge and the joy of our faith: God, in Jesus, became just like we are so that we might become like God.” (cf. Athanasius of Alexandria)

That is, Jesus, the divine one, became human so that we humans might become divine. Jesus, who said “I am the light of the world” also said to you and me, “You are the light of the world.” Jesus became like us that we might become like Him. You are the light of the world, he said. And as Pr. Crippen noted in his sermon a few weeks back, “these words of Jesus are not a command but a statement of fact.

“You. Are. Light.

“Jesus was saying that with you – with each one of you – He is bringing light to the world. “He didn’t say ‘try really hard to do this’. He said this is what you are. “You are light.” (from Pr Crippen’s sermon “Low Sodium and Energy Saving Bulbs No More”)

Jesus claimed us as His own, died for us, washed us clean in baptism, raised us to new life, and has made us his gift of light for a dark world.

“You are the light of the world”, He said. And he added that no one lights a lamp and puts it under a bucket. That would make no sense. But rather a burning lamp should always be set on a stand so its light can shine throughout the room. “So let your light shine”, Jesus said, “so that everyone may see your good works and give glory to your God” who lit that flame within you.

So we are called to shine that light forth, not hide it. And we shine forth when we do the things Jesus did, speak as Jesus spoke and live as He calls us to live: Forgiving instead of seeking revenge, Turning the other cheek instead of striking back, Feeding those with empty bellies, Welcoming strangers, Visiting prisoners, Giving a twenty to the beggar who asks for a quarter, Making peace instead of waging war, Comforting those who mourn. Loving God and neighbor and enemies.

In these good works we are light, shining forth, rolling back the darkness of pain, hate, and injustice. And as we let our light so shine, If we listen, we might hear a voice coming from the heavens, a voice that says of us,

“You are my sons and daughters whom I love very much. I created you in my image, I bought you with my own blood, You are mine. I’ve written each of your names on the palm of my hand and I will never forget you.In each one of you I am well pleased.”

Jesus became like us so that we might become like Him. I am the light of the world, He said. You are the light of the world, He said. Jesus stands on the mountain his face shining like the sun, his garments glowing with pure light.

You shine too, brothers and sisters. Reflect his holy light to the world in all that you say and do.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Lent is upon us, with Shrove Tuesday (and pancakes!) tomorrow and Ash Wednesday looming ahead as the herald of a 40 day journey we make with each other and our Lord. It is a time for us to learn discipline as we prepare our hearts and minds for the celebration of the deepest mysteries of our faith, the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is an austerity to Lent, with the ancient disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving more strongly emphasized during this season. I find that austerity refreshing, having the Church call me to stop doing things, to put aside other things, to consider the greater meaning of the life of a disciple. Our family has often given up food items for Lent, but I’m also considering attempting fasting once a week this year as a spiritual discipline which our forebears often have recommended for focusing on God’s call to us. In our worship we even set aside a word, Alleluia, which we will not sing or say until we sing it anew at the Great Vigil. Lent enables us to practice for the journey of faith that is our whole life, as we learn discipline which will stay with us far beyond these few weeks.

Let us make this journey together, brothers and sisters. In the gift of community we help each other in our walk of faith, and during this Lent we can exercise that gift for each other. We receive the blessings of God’s grace here, together, and now we help and teach each other to walk in that grace. To that end, there are a number of opportunities for us to practice discipline together, to walk the path of Lent together, which I want to highlight and encourage.

First, Susan Cherwien has written a devotional book for the season of Lent, as in past years, which will be available at the church. It will also be placed online, as a blog, at http://journeyintolent.blogspot.com/, with posted daily entries. As we journey together into Lent, this could be a wonderful way for us to pray together wherever our daily prayer lives take place.

We also gather in the middle of the week in Lent, unlike most other seasons. There is a simple Eucharist Wednesdays at noon, starting Mar. 16, followed by a soup and bread luncheon. In the evening at 6:00 p.m. is a soup and bread supper, which this year will include a meditation and conversation, followed by Evening Prayer at 7:00 p.m. I will be reintroducing preaching to our midweek Lenten time together, returning to an earlier practice at Mount Olive. We will focus on the Lord’s Prayer using Luther’s Catechism as a guide, and the sermon at the noon Eucharist will form the meditation at the evening meal which will lead to conversation together. These Wednesdays can be for us a stopping point, a rest in the middle of the week, and a recall to the discipline of the season and of our lives of faith, and I encourage all to find time to come together for this.

A third connection we can make: I will begin a lectionary Bible study this Lent which will continue beyond Easter. On Tuesdays at noon, beginning Mar. 15, any and all are invited to come to the West Lounge for an hour’s conversation on the readings for the next Sunday. (If the numbers are too large, we’ll move to a more convenient space.) Bring a lunch and we’ll see where the Spirit leads. It’s an informal conversation, somewhat in the style of lectio divina, where we’ll read all the texts together and then we’ll talk about what seemed to shine from them for our lives of faith.

Lastly, but perhaps most important, we will continue to celebrate the Holy Eucharist each Sunday in Lent, and will be fed God’s grace and healing by Word and Sacrament, prayer and song. Sundays in Lent are in some ways lived outside of Lent, as each Eucharist is really a little Easter celebration, but the austerity of the season carries into the Sunday ritual as well. We will enter worship each week either with the Kyrie or the Great Litany, using the fifth setting for the Eucharist. The Gospel readings, after the Temptation story for Lent 1, are all from John’s Gospel this year, and are powerful stories John gives us of encountering Jesus: Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man born blind, Lazarus – these all meet Jesus and are forever changed. This Lent, John invites us to the same transformation as we meet Jesus and encounter his grace in our lives.

Lent is indeed upon us. May God make this a season of life for us, as together we walk the journey of faith, learn the discipline of following Jesus, and anticipate the joyful celebration of Easter which makes all things new.

- Joseph

Sunday’s Adult Education9:30 a.m. in the Chapel LoungeSunday, March 13: "Lutheran Youth: the Call to War and the Call from Jesus." Al Bostelmann and Amy Blumenshine (Mpls. Area Synod Diaconal Minister) will lead this discussion of a proposed resolution to Synod Assembly.

Field Trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

A special event is planned for Sunday, March 20, and you're invited to participate.

There is a fascinating exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, entitled The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy. These small sculptures have adorned a French royal tomb since the late 14th century. They depict mourners of all walks of life expressing their grief in various ways. This is a fitting exercise for Lent, as we are continually reminded that we are dust, and to dust we will return.

We will depart from Mount Olive after the late worship service, stop for lunch and then proceed to the MIA. There we will see the Mourners exhibit, and then be joined by a docent for a private tour of art that express spirituality in some form. Cost of lunch is on your own, and admission to the MIA is free. If you are interested, please RSVP to the church office (612.827.5919 or welcome@mountolivechurch.org) or contact Lora Dundek (lhdundek@usfamily.net).

For more information on the exhibit, check out the MIA's website at http://www.artsmia.org. Please join us!

“Lord, Teach Us to Pray” - Midweek Lent at Mount Olive

The forty days of Lent begin this week on Ash Wednesday, Mar. 9, with Eucharist and the Imposition of Ashes at noon and 7:00 p.m.

For the other Wednesday Lenten services this year we will focus on the Lord’s Prayer, and what our Lord Jesus teaches us about our prayer life with God. The midweek schedule, beginning on Wednesday, Mar. 16, is Eucharist at 12:00 noon, followed by a soup lunch at 1:00 p.m. In the evening, there will be a soup supper at 6:00 p.m., and Evening Prayer at 7:00 p.m. The preaching at the noon Eucharist will be reflections on the Lord’s Prayer, and the same meditation will be shared during the evening soup supper, with opportunity for further conversation at the meal.

A Menu of Brunches

As many of you know, there is a flyer in the narthex at church which includes suggested local venues for brunch after church. We will be updating this listing in the near future! If you know of a restaurant to suggest for this listing, please send the information to Susan Cherwien at scherwien@aol.com, or speak to her at church.

Adult Forum Discussion

Because of our economy, many youth are looking at the military to provide stable employment and family health benefits.

The Joint Peace with Justice Committee of the Saint Paul/Minneapolis Area Synods have submitted a resolution, "Lutheran Youth: the Call to War and the Call from Jesus" to be voted in the upcoming synod assemblies in May.

Mount Olive Vestry added its name in support of the resolution which calls for more guidance from parents, pastors and congregational adults working with youth. We will discuss this resolution, answer questions and give background information at the Adult Forum on March 13. The discussion will be led by Mount Olive member Al Bostelmann, and Minneapolis Area Synod Diaconal Minister, Amy Blumenshine.

Book Discussion Group

For its meeting this Saturday, March 12, the Book Discussion Group will read The River of Doubt, by Candice Millard. And for the April 9 meeting, they will read and discuss the poem Gilgamesh.

This group meets on the second Saturday of each month at 10 a.m. All readers are welcome!

March is Minnesota FoodShare Month

The need this year is as great as ever, so we encourage you to be generous with your donations of money or non-perishable food items for our local food shelf during the month of March. This drive fills the shelves of 300 food shelves across the state of Minnesota.

Fifty percent of all food shelf recipients are children, twenty percent of all adult recipients are elderly, and sixty percent of all adults who use the food shelves are the working poor.

We especially encourage you to consider giving a financial contribution via your blue envelopes instead of groceries, noting that it is for the food shelf. For every ten dollars donated, food shelf workers can buy $40 worth of food through various purchasing resources not available to the general public. So monetary donations go much farther.

Semi-Annual Meeting set for Apr. 10

Mount Olive congregation will have its semi-annual meeting on Sunday, Apr. 10, following the second liturgy. On the agenda is the election of officers and directors, and consideration of amendments to the constitution and bylaws of Mount Olive (Copies of the proposed amendments are available at church. Please contact the church office if you need a copy mailed to you). All members are encouraged to attend the meeting.